The Satellite That Tracks Hurricanes Is Currently Down—Right as the Gulf Heats Up
LAFAYETTE, La. — The main satellite NOAA uses to track hurricanes across the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf is offline until further notice. The outage comes as the National Hurricane Center watches a system that’s expected to develop close to home this weekend.
GOES-19 is NOAA’s primary satellite for tracking tropical waves as they strengthen and move across the basin, providing real-time imagery that feeds directly into hurricane forecasts. The satellite went into a protective safehold late Wednesday, and the last usable image from the spacecraft came in at 4:10 p.m. Eastern time on July 15.
What Happened to the Satellite
NOAA’s Office of Satellite Operations said engineers are working to recover GOES-19 and will release a timeline once one is available. The agency has not disclosed a cause for the safehold, which is a standard protective measure satellites enter to guard against a wider system failure while technicians diagnose a problem.
Beyond hurricane tracking, GOES-19 is also the satellite meteorologists rely on most to monitor lightning strikes, ocean temperatures and broader weather patterns across Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf Coast. Forecasters still have other tools to work with, but they’ve lost their sharpest set of eyes on the tropics right in the middle of hurricane season.
Backup Options While GOES-19 Is Down
NOAA has redundancy built into its satellite network. The older GOES-16 satellite can be brought back into service to cover the Atlantic basin while GOES-19 is offline, though putting it back into position and online would take time. Forecasters have also leaned more heavily in recent years on AI-based weather models. NOAA introduced those models into hurricane forecasting for the first time last year, and they’re still part of the mix this season.
The National Hurricane Center continues to issue its regular tropical outlooks using the tools that remain available, and residents can check current satellite status through NOAA’s operations page.
Why the Timing Matters for Acadiana
The National Hurricane Center is tracking two areas of potential tropical development right now, and one of them is a lot closer to Louisiana than the other. Forecasters expect an area of low pressure to form over the northeastern Gulf this weekend and drift slowly northeastward, tracking near the coast of the southeastern United States early next week. As of Thursday, the National Hurricane Center put the odds of that system organizing at near 0% over the next 48 hours and 20% over the next seven days. It’s too early to say what impacts, if any, it could bring to the Gulf Coast beyond a chance of higher rain totals. The second area, a tropical wave several hundred miles off Africa, has only a 10% chance of developing and poses no threat to the Gulf Coast.
Neither system currently threatens Acadiana. But with the region’s primary hurricane-tracking satellite down for an undetermined stretch, residents who keep an eye on the tropics during peak season have one less real-time tool available if that northeastern Gulf system does start to organize.
What Happens Next
NOAA has not given a timeline for restoring GOES-19. Updates on the satellite’s status are posted to the agency’s operations page as they become available, and residents can track any tropical development directly through the National Hurricane Center. KPEL News will continue monitoring both the satellite recovery effort and the Gulf disturbance as the weekend approaches.
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Gallery Credit: Joe Cunningham
